Wednesday July 2, 2008 5:15 am Great Falls, Montana

It is +14 C with a high forecast of +23 C.
See current forecast here. See current news here.

This page last updated on: Friday, July 4, 2008 11:06 AM

A. Morning Musings

There is a 40% chance of thunderstorms this morning. The sky is overcast at the moment. The foreast for Lethbridge is about the same. We will make a decision about birding later this morning.

Now to put the in-room coffee on.

That first sip is always a delight.

One of the books I bought yesterday is about getting and staying fit. It promotes a progressive 12 week program. The idea of beginning simply and slowly working up the routine has appeal. I will spend a few minutes reading the introductory material.

Learning Category	Planned Activities for Today	Time
Psychology	Continue reading "Moments in Between"	1 hr
Literature	Continue reading "State of Fear"

B. Actual Learning Activities

7:00 am

Here are the main points that I have noted from reading the opening pages of "Body Conditioning for Men":

Buy a small notebook to keep track of the workouts. I could use this web site for this.
Stick with it in order to see results. Makes sense to me. 12 weeks is only 3 months. July - September.
One of the suggested pieces of exercise equipment is called a "resistance band". This is new to me.
Another new item is something called an SMR foam roll.
My current diet is already close to what is suggested. The one change will be to drink more water.
One to two glasses of red wine a day is okay for men over age 40. I qualify.
A multi-vitamin supplement for men over 60 is also suggested. I qualify again.
Making a "portable" lunch pack (fresh fruit, a handful of mixed nuts & raisins, a cereal bar, water) in the morning is a good habit to get into.
Aim for perfect execution of each exercise.
Each daily routine should begin with a 15 minute warm-up and end with a 15 minute cool-down routine.
The starter program consists of 2 days on (1 day exercise, 1 day cardio-vascular), 1 day off, 2 days on, and the weekend off.

The big problem at the beginning is learning the proper execution of each of the exercise routines.

My maximum heart rate for training is 220 - 65 = 155. The recommended heart rate level for a beginner is 50% of the maximum, that is 77. I have a wrist watch that measures heart rate. I must find this and see if I can begin using it - both to monitor my rate while walking as well as when I am exercising.

I will begin by simply familiarizing myself with the exercise routines and seeing how it goes. I definitely want to begin slowly until I establish a regular routine. I already have a fairly regular walking routine which is a good cardio-vascular workout but I should add some stretching exercises for a warm-up and cooling-down routine. I need to get back to my 1-hour coulee walk which includes some hill-climbing. I will put off buying either the resistance band or the SMR foam roll for the moment. There are enough alternatives in the book so this should not be a problem. I also have a Nordic-Trac cross-country training system that I bought at the garage sale that I would like to try out for some additional variety in my cardio-vascular routines.

In summary:

Take a multi-vitamin plus a vitamin D pill and an ASA pill each day
Focus on a portable lunch pack.
Establish a regular coulee walk 3 days a week (MWF).
Begin an exercise routine that I follow for 2 days each week (TT).

That really doesn't seem too onerous. But I want to begin cautiously, both with the exercises as well as with the cardio-vascular routines.

7:40 am

Continuing to read "Moments In Between". I am really enjoying it. On page 23 Kundtz makes a distinction between Doing and Being, giving the example of a doctor who is only happy when he is at work. "Being a doctor has become who he is, not just what he does." This is likely why I am enjoying retirement so much - I never became a professor, rather it was something I did (often for too many hours) (and most of these hours were very enjoyable) but I always had many other interests as well.

3:00 PM

Here are a few images of the drive from Great Falls to Lethbridge:

We are back home in Lethbridge.

Just before leaving Great Falls this morning we checked our email and received a message from our daughter saying that she hoped our house was all right. A bit un-nerving. A quick check of the Lethbridge news indicated that they experienced a violent thunderstorm yesterday and received about 50 mm of rain in 90 minutes. The city has been declared a disaster area due to flooding.

We arrived in town at noon and everything seemed normal until we turned the corner toward our house and noticed debris all over the road. Fearing the worst we checked our back garage door and there was evidence of flooding in the garage. But when we checked the basement everything was fine. Our friends a few doors away had almost 2 feet of water in their basement due to storm sewers backing up and flooding the entire lane and back yards of nearby properties.

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